


Glow

by Laughingvirus



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Hyunjin centric, Projecting, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 12:28:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15818880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laughingvirus/pseuds/Laughingvirus
Summary: Dance was everything to Hyunjin.





	Glow

_Pang._

It happened quickly. All Hyunjin was supposed to do was an easy tuck jump, pull up his legs and land. He had done it a thousand times, he had been practicing for years how to jump and how to land. But it still happened.

_Pang._

The sound echoed in his mind. It kept on repeating. The scene kept repeating. He jumped, he landed with too much weight on his right leg and his knee just snapped, twisting in a way it shouldn't have and _pang_. He glanced up at the clock and heaved a sigh.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Felix mumbled, rubbing Hyunjin’s shoulder. “You’ll be back in no time.”

Hyunjin opened his mouth to reply, to tell Felix that he wasn’t going to be back soon. But suddenly his name was called out.

“Hwang Hyunjin,” a nurse said and Hyunjin nodded, standing up.

“You good?” Felix asked and Hyunjin nodded, glancing back at his leg. He bit his lip, sent Felix a last look and followed the nurse. He clenched his jaw as he walked, a dull but familiar pain flaring in his leg.

“Hyunjin,” his orthopedist said as Hyunjin entered the room. “Sit down,” she said and Hyunjin nodded mutely, sitting down at the chair in front of her. She looked serious and Hyunjin’s heart dropped. “I checked your MRI scan and it’s not looking very good,” she said.

It felt like Hyunjin’s whole world was crumbling.

“Your ACL is torn, there’s a partial tear in your inner meniscus and you seem to have some minor damages to the collateral ligaments.”

Hyunjin had done his research. He knew what this meant and it wasn’t good.

“I need to take a look at your knee before we talk about what to do,” she said and Hyunjin nodded, summoning all his might not to cry. “So just lay down on the examination table please.”

Hyunjin moved from the chair to the table, laid back and took a deep breath. His orthopedist stood up and began to examine his knee. Hyunjin hated the look of his knee. It was swollen and quite frankly, it looked like a potato and it just kept reminding him of how stupid he was.

“So,” he looked up as his orthopedist spoke and he looked at her, still trying to hold back his tears. “To fix your ACL, we’re going to have to take two of your hamstrings and use as a substitute.”

Hyunjin nodded.

“Your knee is never going to be the same,” she continued. “The rehab is long and if you’re lucky, you can dance again in maybe a year.”

Hyunjin just nodded, biting back the tears.

“Because your meniscus is partially torn, we have to be quick. But we’ll give you a call when the surgery is scheduled.”

With that, Hyunjin left the room. His leg was hurting, his shoulders were heavy and his eyes stung. As soon as he was out in the corridor and the orthopedist had closed the door behind him, he broke down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dancing was Hyunjin’s life. Dancing was what he was good at. He didn’t know anything else. He didn’t have a lot of friends except his dance team.

His dance team.

A wave of guilt washed over Hyunjin and he sobbed. He let his team down. By getting this injury he was ruining things for them. He wasn’t of any use to them anymore. When he’d told them about the situation, how bad his knee was and how long he was going to be gone, they’d told him it was fine and they would just wait for him. But a year… a year was a long time… and one could improve a lot in a year. Hyunjin would be a year after his team’s skills. He would drag them down. He was dragging them down, slowing their progress down. Because of the injury they had to redo the choreo, change things, clean up after Hyunjin’s own mistake.

Hyunjin hated himself. He was a fucking burden to his teammates.

Maybe it would be better if he just… disappeared. Then he wouldn’t ruin things for everyone else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Hyunjin woke up, he was groggy and dizzy. His first thought was dance. He lifted the thin white blanket with trembling hands, the anesthetics still making him hazy. His leg was covered in a white sock all the way up to his thigh.

“How are you feeling, Hyunjin?” a nurse asked and Hyunjin looked up. Damn he was dizzy.

“Dizzy,” he mumbled and the nurse nodded.

“Do you want some water?” he asked and Hyunjin nodded mutely, laying his head back on the pillow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

His leg was heavy and everything felt hopeless. He was still walking with crutches and his leg was just… there. It had been three weeks since his surgery and Hyunjin had just isolated himself from everyone. Felix and Minho had sent him messages and visited, telling him he was more than welcome to come to practice.

Hyunjin wasn’t sure he was ready to visit. But he wanted to… show his team that he cared, he still cared about them.

The worst thing with crutches was getting through doors by yourself. It wasn’t impossible since Hyunjin could sort of walk without the crutches, but just had them for the extra support.

“Hyunjin!” Felix said as Hyunjin walked through the door. The music stopped and Hyunjin could see everyone on his dance team smiling at him. “How are you? You look good!”

“I’m okay,” Hyunjin said, mostly to himself. He was okay.

“How’s the rehab?” Minho asked, smiling so widely as Hyunjin made his way to the chairs in the far end of the practice room.

“Good,” Hyunjin said, sitting down. He was still just doing exercises to get the movement back in his knee. He couldn’t even bend his knee to 90 degrees. The three weeks of rehab had felt like an eternity. He barely did any improvement. It was slow.

“Can I borrow your crutches?” Felix asked just as Minho started the song. Hyunjin just nodded and watched, a small smile breaking out on his face, as Felix proceeded to dance the whole choreography with crutches.

By the end of the choreography, Hyunjin was laughing along with everyone on his team.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Six weeks into rehab, Hyunjin had gotten rid of the crutches and was still just doing exercises to get “reasonable knee function” in his knee and some strength in his thigh back. He had felt it immediately. His right leg was so much weaker than his left and even if he could walk by now, it was hard. With the knee still too stiff to bend normally, he couldn’t walk properly.

It was hard.

He wanted to improve. He wanted to get better. He wanted to get back with his team, with his friends. He wanted to stop being such a fucking disappointment to them.

Hyunjin bit his lip. He was back at the doctor’s office again, to remove his staples from his scar. He couldn’t cry here.

“Hwang Hyunjin!” a nurse called out and Hyunjin looked up. She smiled and motioned for him to follow her. He quickly stood up and followed her as fast as he could, aka not very fast. “Getting the staples removed?” she asked with a warm smile as he sat down in the chair, he just nodded mutely. “How long ago did you have surgery?”

“Just about six weeks,” Hyunjin mumbled, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He was mostly just focused on removing the staples.

“Ah,” she said, nodding as she took out the tools. “Could you roll up your pants?” she asked and he nodded, unzipping the side of the leg of his pants, rolling it up. He didn’t have the white sock anymore, the pressure sock to keep the swelling down, but he still had the bandaids, all four of them. One big rectangular and three round ones. He was mostly nervous about the rectangular one. He watched as the nurse removed the small, round bandaids. The scars there were small, maybe two centimeters, and had three staples each.

As the nurse removed them, Hyunjin bit his lip, frowning every time she removed one staple. It didn’t hurt… but it was uncomfortable.

Then came the big bandaid. As she removed it, Hyunjin’s stomach dropped. The scar was about 10 centimeters, not fully healed with dried blood around the edges.

“It looks good,” the nurse said and Hyunjin just nodded quietly. It didn’t look good at all. He looked away as she removed the staples. He didn’t want to look at it. “There we go,” she said after a few moments and Hyunjin looked back. If anything, the scar looked worse now. It was the wide scar by itself, but also small marks from the staples. The nurse finished cleaning up the scar and put on a fresh bandaid on the big scar.

“Thank you,” Hyunjin mumbled and the nurse smiled.

“Just keep that bandaid on for two days before you remove it,” she said and he nodded, chewing on his bottom lip. “Good luck with your rehab.” Hyunjin just nodded, whispering a quiet ‘thank you’ before quickly exiting the doctor’s office.

He was limping, not being able to walk properly. He wasn’t making any process with his rehab. He wasn’t going to get back to dancing.

Hyunjin sank down at a park bench, burying his face in his hands.

He was such a fucking disappointment. He fucked up because he was technically bad at dancing. His knee was fucked up. It wasn’t going to function properly ever. He couldn’t proceed his rehab exercises and do progress like he should have. He should be able to walk properly by now, shouldn’t he?

He kept being a liability to everyone around him. His parents took care of him when he was recovering and his friends were trying their best to include him, but he kept pulling away. He felt so ashamed.

Maybe it was better if he didn’t exist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyunjin was two and a half month into rehab when he took the first careful dance steps. He was careful, mindful, and made sure he wasn’t doing anything bad for his knee. He was wearing shorts, making sure he could see the scar to remind himself of his knee.

Felix and Minho were behind him, both keeping an eye at him as he took the slow and careful steps. He was smiling as he danced, his heart feeling lighter than ever before.

“Look at you,” Minho said, ruffling Hyunjin’s hair. He wasn’t drenched in sweat like he used to be, but he was feeling warm and it was great to be… somewhat back. Hyunjin just smiled at Minho and Felix as he sat down on the floor.

He still didn’t have full movement back in his knee, but it was good enough to start carefully. He looked down on his knee, it was still looking swollen but that was just his new ACL. He sometimes felt disdain when he looked at his knee, because it kept reminding him of his own mistakes and how he messed up and quite frankly, it was just ugly. But he was getting better. He looked up from his knee and back at Minho and Felix, beaming at them.

 

 

_Thankfully, only a small cut on his knee. No problem in dancing._

**Author's Note:**

> Did Glow save me? yes.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for reading
> 
>  
> 
> You can find me on twt @ pinkpunchmango hmu if you wanna talk


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